Sharing key documents internally and externally is a major source of inefficiency and risk

LONDON - Financial information firm Markit has released a report on documentation management risk, highlighting the operational benefits of using its Markit Document Exchange (MDE). The MDE professes to reduce reliance on shared folders internally and facilitating transparency between counterparties.

It is designed to help firms store and share key documents across business and then permission out among their counterparties, eliminating problems of using shared Excel spreadsheets and distributing key documents via email.

Penny Davenport, head of Markit Document Exchange, says: "It is a storage mechanism that is much more efficient than using shared folders which is very difficult across departments and jurisdictions. But the sharing and permissioning aspect is the real value-add, because it enables firms to manage their information distribution effectively as opposed to emailing."

On the sell side, MDE already works with a large number of banks, including Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, CBA, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, RBS, Société Générale and UBS Securities. On the buy side, the list includes a large number of hedge funds and asset managers such as Wellington and AXA.

"On the buy side it is very hard to identify the right contacts within the banks to whom they need to send their KYC documents and their ongoing recertification documents," says Davenport. "The sell side typically complains that they cannot get those documents quickly enough or in an efficient way. Markit Document Exchange is the solution to this problem."

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